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What's a technology that was cooler in its older iterations? (pawb.social)

submitted 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.

An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.

If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.

That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Old camera lenses are awesome. I've got some steel and glass rokkors that are beautiful. They render in such a wonderful way too, so painterly. They have thorium in the glass! Not enough to be sketchy to use but something that obviously isn't done anymore. Bonus points that they can be fixed with a hammer.

Old camera stuff in general is subjectively cooler. The leaf shutters in my 4x5 lenses are incredible little machines. Film in general is cooler than whatever sensor the latest and greatest has. Actual bits of silver suspended in emulsion, with colour filters and dye couplers that react in development. There's a great three part video on YouTube breaking down Kodak's manufacturing process. It's mind boggling that stuff even works. Ohhhh and actually darkroom optical prints! Don't get me started there!

I'm going to develop some rolls I think. Got me in the mood.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

I have a couple of 80s Rokkors that I use with a speedbooster on my lumix g9, a 50mm and a 35mm. Despite having to do some math in terms of converting things like focal length, etc... because of the adaptor, It's WELL worth it.